Another Friday, another NaNoWriMo recap for you! As expected, I took a day off from writing this week and while I’m glad I did that because I most assuredly needed it, I do feel like my momentum has shifted a bit and it’s making me a little wary about how I’ll handle motivation in December. My goal is to spend December finishing up the novel (I’ll likely have at least 30k more words to write), so here’s hoping I can make that happen!
Anyway, onto week three! Here are my recaps:
Day 15
- Goal: 2,000 words
- Actual: 2,040 words
As an Enneagram 9, one of the things I really struggle with is inertia. Mostly, it’s hard for me to get started on a task. Once I’m immersed in it, I’m fine and it’s hard to drag me away… it’s just the getting there that’s hard. Procrastination is the name of my game. I felt this inertia problem hard tonight as I worked on my writing. I had to really force myself to pick up my laptop and write. But I did it, in two 30-minute time blocks (and I took a break between them to make cookies, which was an A+ decision). I’m happy with what I wrote today, too. It was a good scene and fun to write! Let’s hope the rest of my writing week is just as much fun!
Day 16
- Goal: 2,000 words
- Actual: 2,052 words
- Things researched: real estate development
Another pretty great writing day! As always, I struggled with the novel at the beginning of my writing session. (Lots of, “Ugh, you’re fooling yourself if you think this novel could ever be published” thoughts.) But I pushed through the self-doubt and mean thoughts and wound up having a lot of fun with one particular scene.
I feel so motivated to get my word count done, even if it does take me some time to actually do it. I went to a fun event this afternoon and afterward, my mom invited me out to dinner but it was nearing 6 p.m. and I hadn’t started writing yet. I knew the more responsible thing was to go home, eat something quick, and get my words done. So that’s what I did – any other month and I would have blown off my writing goal. There’s just something about NaNoWriMo! I’m actually feeling a little nervous about not having it to motivate me when December rolls around.
Day 17
- Goal: 2,000 words
- Actual: 2,080 words
- Things researched: different facial expressions
Today was a great writing day! I waited until the end of the day to write when I should have done it in the morning as I was just lazing around and then spent the rest of the day procrastinating about getting it done. But, I did it! It went pretty quickly, too. Maybe a little over an hour to write 2,000+ words so I’m happy about that. I’m currently on track to finish by Nov. 24th so I think I’m definitely going to give myself a day off sometime this week. I think I’ve earned it!
Day 18
- Goal: 1,500 words
- Actual: 1,617 words
I wrote these words before work and I definitely thought my alarm was messing with me when it went off at 4:45AM this morning. Alas, it was not! I was a sleepy girl as I wrote but I got it all down and most of it wasn’t half bad. Still, it took me about the same amount of time to write 1,600 words as it took me to write 2,000 words last night so that’s pretty telling. But I’m done for the day and I can feel good about that!
Day 19
- Goal: 1,500 words
- Actual: 0 words
My first goose-egg of the challenge! I planned to take a day off this week and Tuesday seemed like a good day to do it. It allowed me to sleep in (until 5:30am, haha) and just have a day where I didn’t have to think about my novel. It was a good break, but I definitely felt a little guilty about not writing today and wondering if it would affect my momentum. Time will tell!
Day 20
- Goal: 1,500 words
- Actual: 1,553 words
I got this done before work and man, was I sleepy while writing it! I finally had the good sense to make myself iced coffee, which gave me the kick in the pants I needed. It was a pretty easy writing day – took about 45 minutes to get these words done and I’m happy with what I wrote. Although I forgot the name of a semi-minor character and didn’t feel like searching my document for the name I gave him originally so I made up a new name for him. Must remember to go back and change it! Remembering the names of minor characters is harder than you’d think! I also find myself mixing up the names of my main character and her closest female friend a lot, which is problematic since my main character is dating her friend’s brother. That could get dicey. 😉
Day 21
- Goal: 1,500 words
- Actual: 1,194 words
Oh boy, I was just not interested in writing today. I really had to force myself to sit down and write and then I made a deal with myself that I only had to write to two full pages. It’s under my goal but it’s still forward progress! To prepare to write today, I read back through some of what I wrote yesterday and, y’all, it’s total garbage. Ha. Like, I’d probably abandon the romance novel if I was reading it myself. EEKS. I’m trying to take deep breaths and remember it’s okay. It’s supposed to be trash during the first draft and I will be able to spend lots of time revising it and making it sound much better. Also, I wrote it at 5am yesterday when I was half asleep. I was pretty positive I wasn’t writing award-winning prose then.
My goal is to finish the challenge by Wednesday, which means I need to write around 2,000 words a day from now until then. My weekend is relatively plan-less and the first part of the week is, too, so fingers crossed I can make it happen! (And am much more inspired to write than I was today!)
Total word count after week 3: 39,934 (80%)
It will totally be better after your revisions – it is just a first draft! Things sometimes come out clunky.
I am LOLing at you forgetting the minor characters name! That is one of my biggest struggles in reading for some reason – keeping track of everyone!
I can only imagine how tedious it is to write a complete novel (I am such a critical reader myself, so I’ll nitpick at any “inconsistency”, while knowing how hard it is to keep everything coherent).
Just know, you’re doing great work